Kanye West once said he's 50 percent more influential than Stanley Kubrick or Pablo Picasso. That's a pretty hot take, but when it comes to influence over the sneaker industry he's definitely more influential than those two and Pablo Escobar and Apostle Paul combined (at least as far as we know). West's Yeezys have become some of the most coveted footwear out there. And though they don't exactly make much revenue for Adidas, they sell for thousands of dollars—up from the original $350 price—on the secondary market, and have quite literally changed the resale game.

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"Ordinarily when a shoe is selling for thousands of dollars on the secondary market, it's because it's very rare, and in the past year, there were 100 or 200 sold," Josh Luber, CEO of StockX told Footwear News. "For the Yeezys, there's literally thousands of pairs being sold on the secondary market, and they're still selling for thousands of dollars...[West has] made Adidas more relevant in the secondary market than it used to be."

Ye's sneaker history goes back a decade, when he designed the Nike Air 180 "College Dropout," which was only was available to friends and family in a size 12. Since then he's designed footwear for a number of brands, including Reebok and Louis Vuitton—plus his infamous, hype-filled run with Nike. These days he's found himself comfortably partnered with Adidas. And when we say comfortably, we mean impressively devout in his loyalty to the brand, even attempting to prevent his own family from partnering with competitors.

But all of this could have been very different if West had worked with Adidas from the beginning. Back in 2006, he met with representatives from the company to discuss a collaborative version of the Rod Laver Vintage court sneaker, according to an article in Crepe City written by Adidas creative consultant Gary Aspden. Check out this excerpt, courtesy of Hypebeast:

We met with Kanye in the studio in L.A. where he was recording–I was impressed by the fact that he had no big entourage, just him and his manager Don. He was immediately welcoming and respectful when he realised I had been instrumental in that first adidas x BAPE collaboration (at the time he was a big fan of A Bathing Ape and adidas Originals). The discussion revolved around working with adidas on versions of the Rod Laver Vintage which was his favourite shoe at that time. After much to-ing and fro-ing between Kanye's team and the then head of adidas Originals, the project didn't end up coming to fruition which I now believe was no bad thing, however, years later as everyone is aware, adidas and Kanye finally hooked up and collaborated. The result of that I believe has been something far more substantial than anything that was potentially on the table back in 2006–a completely new shoe silhouette utilising a groundbreaking technology.

When Aspden points out that it "was no bad thing" that West and Adidas didn't work together in 2006, we'd have to agree. Aside from a Kanye Rod Laver Vintage tennis shoe sounding strange as hell, we're glad that he had nearly a decade of practice before settling into such a productive collaboration with Adidas. Would they still be working together today after 10 years? It's hard to say, but considering what went down at Nike, it's entirely possible he'd have already moved on. Which would be a pity. Because, damn, he makes some sick shoes.